Harbingers of Death

This weekend we’ve been house sitting for Gary and Laurel. They don’t exactly need a house sitter (seeing as their maid lives on the property), but since Roger and I are always looking for ways to escape our current domestic situation, we gladly volunteered to move in for a few days and look after the dogs, the fish and the hamster. We're not looking after Connor and Dale though, they are staying at Granny’s. So we've traded places for the weekend.

All is going well. The dogs are happy; the fish are fed, but when I go into Connor’s room to change the hamster’s water, Snuggles is nowhere in sight. I assume she’s in her bed, which is a cotton filled plastic bubble attached to the cage by a short clear pipe. I know from Connor that she likes to nestle into the cotton for both the darkness and the warmth. I change the water and put it back into the cage. “Snuggles,” I say as I tap on the bubble. I hate to disturb her, but I want to make sure she’s okay. “Snuggles?” I say again. Nothing. Not that I’m expecting an answer, but a little movement in the cotton would be nice.

“Roger,” I shout. “I can’t find Snuggles.” I open up the cage again and stick my hand inside, carefully reaching a finger into the pipe. I wiggle my finger around a bit, but the pipe is too long and my finger is too short.

“I’m sure she’s sleeping, Babe,” Roger says as he walks into the room. “She’s hiding in all that cotton,” he adds, looking over my shoulder.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he says with his trademark confidence. I am eager to believe him, so we go to bed unconcerned.

The next night, it’s Roger’s turn to change Snuggles’ water. I’m getting ready for bed when he comes into the room with a nervous expression. He is holding Snuggles' bed/bubble.

“Did you find her?” I ask, slightly terrified. He shakes his head. “Did she eat the cucumber?” I ask. Connor had suggested placing a cucumber in the pipe to lure her out of her bed, but the cucumber lies untouched.

“Should I open it?” he asks.

“She has to be in there,” I say, unsure as to what is more terrifying: a runaway hamster or a dead one.

I watch as he slowly twists the bubble apart. He lifts the top of the sphere, but there is no movement in the cotton.

“Well…find her!” I say, irritated at his snail-like pace.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stick your finger in there,” I answer.

“I’m not sticking my finger in there.” He looks at me as if I’ve just suggested that he place his head into a lion’s den. “Hamsters bite,” he says wide-eyed.

“They do not.” I roll my eyes.
“Do too.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
Deep breath. I am not an eight year old. “Well, if they do bite, it doesn’t hurt,” I insist.

“Does too,” he grumbles as he slowly parts the cotton with his index finger. “Oh, no.”

“What?” I ask, but his face says it all. I rush to Roger’s side and peer into the parted cotton. I see a bit of fur. “Snug-gles, are you sleeping? Snuggles?” But I know she’s not sleeping. I look away from the tiny fur ball. My mind is filled with visions of Connor’s face when we tell him that we’ve killed his hamster. Roger must have been thinking the same thing because we look up at each other and simultaneously exclaim:

“But we didn’t do it!”

“Of course we didn’t do it,” Roger says with the feigned confidence I’m once again eager to believe. “We haven’t even seen her, Robyn. We’ve been changing her water, just like we were told. We didn’t do it.”

“Try telling that to Connor,” I grumble, wondering what we can buy him to win back his affection. Once again, Roger is thinking the same thing.

“We’ll just buy him a new hamster,” Roger says. He then looks back down at the plastic bubble thoughtfully. “And maybe we could find one that looks exactly like Snuggles.”

I know what he’s thinking, and believe me, if I thought we could get away with it, I would be on my way to the pet shop at this very moment instead of sitting at the computer documenting the whole experience. But it would never work. Connor’s eleven – and extremely bright. No way is he falling for a fake Snuggles.

“Then what do we do?” Roger asks.
“I don’t know! What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know!”
We sit in silence, staring down at the open bubble. Roger speaks first, hanging his head in shame. “We’re like...the harbingers of death.”

I’m not exactly sure what a ‘harbinger’ is, but I can speculate its meaning, and it’s not good. A terrifying thought comes over me and I race out of the room and down the stairs. I flip on the light in the fish tank and desperately try to count the fish. Roger is right behind me.

“How many are there?” I ask in desperation.

“I don't know, but there aren’t any floating at the top, so I think we’re okay.”

I breathe a sigh of relief as I turn the light off. “Do you think the dogs are okay?” I ask.

Roger pulls me into his chest. “They’re fine, my girl. They’re fine.”

We wait until morning to call Gary and Laurel. Being the responsible parents that they are, they decide to drive straight to Granny’s and tell Connor what has happened. Roger and I sigh with relief, grateful not to be the ones who deliver the news. We resign ourselves to the fact that he’ll probably hate us, but at least we won’t have to watch him burst into tears. I’m not sure I could handle it.

He does burst into tears. But Laurel is able to comfort him – after all, Snuggles had a good, long life. Gary and Laurel talk with him in the back garden for awhile and he finally comes back in with a tear stained face, but otherwise okay. Roger and I give him a hug before he scurries off with Dale.

A few hours later I’m passing by his bedroom when I hear him calling my name.

I pause in the doorway. “You doing okay?” I ask.

He nods. “You do know that it was nothing you did, right?” He looks up at me and my heart literally melts. “She would have died anyway,” he adds sadly.

And I know he’s right – I’m not the harbinger of death – but I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear him say it. I do, however, feel a bit bad that in his time of grief, he's the one comforting me.

Kids are amazing, especially Connor and Dale. I know I’m biased, but come on – I killed the kid’s hamster and he still loves me! It’s crazy. In fact, it almost makes me want a kid of my own…but then again, Roger and I can’t even keep a hamster alive for three days, so perhaps we should wait a bit longer.

Yeah, the harbingers of death probably shouldn’t procreate.
At least not yet.